Symbols

As with many of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, “The Masque of the Red Death” is filled with symbolical elements:

• Blood and the color red
• The color black and the rooms
• The tripods and the masqueraders
• The castle and the clock

The color black and the rooms

The color black and the black room are a symbol of death and decay, as the black room becomes the tomb of the Prince and of the characters who die inside it.

The other colored rooms are also symbolic as they stand for different stages of life. Blue is associated for instance with birth and, symbolically,...

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The tripods and the masqueraders

The tripods outside the ball chambers holding the fires which illuminate the rooms are the only positive symbol in the short story, being symbols of light and hope.

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